Where on earth have you been?

"You're going where?" our friends asked incredulously. "Are you crazy!?"

Very quickly we realised few people understood our reasoning - or shared our excitement - for taking a month-long family holiday in the Middle East and North Africa.

After all, the Middle East is synonymous with AK47s and machine guns, terrorism, civil unrest, tourist kidnappings, exploding rockets, etc, etc. So why on earth would any parents in their right minds take their six-year-old and nine-year-old children into that fray?

"It'll be fun," we replied. "Besides, it's not like we're not going to Afghanistan." Nope, we're not that crazy; we were bound for Israel and The Palestinian Territories, Jordan and Egypt.

Still, this itinerary did little to appease our close friends who hugged us goodbye as if for the last time.

That was six weeks ago. Today, two weeks after returning home I can't help but smile as I sit here and recall the many highlights and memorable moments of the trip.

Of course we were ecstatic to see those ridiculously old and huge pentrahedrons in Egypt;

then there was the morning we spent riding camels in Jordan's Wadi Rum desert;

and, although I didn't get a photo, I can't not write about how we scurried past the swarms of police in riot gear with their water cannons and hummers mounted with machine guns on a particularly tense Friday afternoon in Jerusalem's Old City.

Through it all though, the only time I felt our lives were in danger was when we negotiated the manic, noisy, unrelenting and unforgiving traffic in Cairo. As one of our taxi drivers admitted with glee, "The traffic lights and lane markings here are just for decoration!"

Thankfully we did manage to cross the road without being squished and after four weeks in the Middle East and North Africa we made it home to Sydney safely.

So, I do apologise for being so quiet on WriteSmart for the past six weeks, but I am now back and am bursting with new ideas for blog posts for freelance writers.

My post next week will focus on how to write great travel features and how to make those features pay for themselves through income and tax deductions.

By the way, what is your favourite holiday destination?

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For more information about Pamela Wilson or WriteSmart, log on to http://www.writesmart.com.au/